It is so strange that a couple of months ago, the thought of losing C threw me into a complete panic. I obsessed about it, cried about it. I could not bear the thought of the emptiness and loneliness I would feel if he would be gone from my life.

Now he IS gone, and there is emptiness, but it doesn't feel black or horrible. I would say it feels like a big, slightly melancholy space, that is not suffocating at all, but a space where I can breathe and think and be myself.

I think this says a lot about the way our relationship was the past couple of months. But it also scares me a little - is it normal to be this calm about it? It's not that I am not sad, it's that I am not as sad or hurt as I thought I would be.

MrBrown said that I've been saying goodbye for months. This is true. I also feel that I realized a very important thing in the last conversation with C. I can handle a lot of things - I'm willing to do a lot of work, make a lot of compromises, shift, settle, negotiate. But when someone says "I'm not interested in you sexually anymore" that seems to be a deal breaker.

This kind of surprised me also, because I always thought that if the sex would go we could still be close and intimate friends. But I guess that is not possible if one person wants the sex (and I wanted it terribly - he turned me on, so much, he only had to touch me or I wanted him) and the person doesn't. And it's also not possible when one person hided this change in feelings for months, I do regard this as a breach of trust. He said "But I did not know for sure" and I said "Then you should have told me your doubts and that you did not know for sure, instead of reassuring me your feelings had NOT changed."

Things I've learned and that I want to remind myself of here, for future reference:

I will never get involved with someone again who is scared to let me meet his other partner(s) or who has a partner who is not willing to meet me. By this I really do mean 'willing'. I don't have to meet them , but I have to know that there is a willingness. I did not meet MrBrowns GF until after more than a year, but I knew there was willingness.

If I meet someone who is single and poly, I will have the 'metamour conversation' right in the beginning (never had it with C).

And hopefully, this has taught me something about learning to trust my gut feelings more. The tightness in my chest, the nervousness and anxiety - they are NOT part of a healthy and happy relationship, and I hope to be able to recognize these red flags sooner, the next time.